12-20-2016, 12:05 PM
Hmmm. Cerebral drift? How did I map Robert and David together in my brain? Weird. Really really weird.
I probably liked this movie more than it warranted (how can you actually define "best war movie" when there are so many takes on hell?) because of what I now know of Fuller. The next year, 1981, he made White Dog, an unflinching look at racism that so panicked Paramount that they refused to release it. Outraged, Fuller moved to France and never directed another American film. So, yeah, I have tremendous respect for Fuller's maverick career. Also, The Big Red One (again, not to be confused with Nissan's mundane vehicles) is semi-autobiographical, as Fuller was a foot soldier in WWII and was even present at the liberation of a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, which forms the end point of the movie. So, yeah. A standard war movie in a lot of ways, but to me it felt more genuine.
I probably liked this movie more than it warranted (how can you actually define "best war movie" when there are so many takes on hell?) because of what I now know of Fuller. The next year, 1981, he made White Dog, an unflinching look at racism that so panicked Paramount that they refused to release it. Outraged, Fuller moved to France and never directed another American film. So, yeah, I have tremendous respect for Fuller's maverick career. Also, The Big Red One (again, not to be confused with Nissan's mundane vehicles) is semi-autobiographical, as Fuller was a foot soldier in WWII and was even present at the liberation of a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, which forms the end point of the movie. So, yeah. A standard war movie in a lot of ways, but to me it felt more genuine.